House Democrats Call In Psychologists for Ideas on How to Deal With Trump

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD)
Kevin Dietsch/Getty

Democrats are figuring out how best to articulate how they’ll oppose President Donald Trump’s policies during his second term. Turns out they needed some help.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) brought in two social psychologists to help Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee determine the best way to combat their Republican colleagues, according to Punchbowl News. The goal, Raskin told Punchbowl, was to combat “authoritarian styles of speech in the Trump age.”

The psychologists included University of Virginia professor Jim Coan, whose recent work has focused on “social forms of emotion regulation,” and consultant Hal Movius, who focuses on traits like emotion regulation, “negotiation,” and “organizational development.”

“They’re social psychologists, and they were just talking about communication and authoritarian styles of speech in the Trump age,” Raskin told the outlet. “We were talking about basically communication styles during the Trump era.”

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The move comes as Democrats try to figure out the best way to combat the second Trump administration in its infancy, which has moved at a breakneck pace to appeal to hardline conservative policies. “We’re obviously in a bit of disarray,” a Democratic senator told Semafor last week. “I don’t think people are really completely sure about what lesson is to be learned in this election.”

It also comes as Raskin, now the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee figures out how to work with committee chair Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), a strident, vocal Trump ally known for his conspiracy-mongering. The committee has been further politicized this month after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) ordered a continued investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

But some other Democrats on the committee don’t take issue with the need for psychological intervention, attributing it to the need to figure out how to balance out the various opinions between Raskin and Jordan.

“I think there’s some mutual respect. But I don’t think anyone’s taking off the gloves,” Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) told Punchbowl. “It will be a full-throated airing of opinions.”